Idee Fixe
by Aeanagwen
Summary: Angst for a character whose bountiful potential for it is usually overlooked. Terazuma looks back and reflects on his early days in the Meifu, his teacher, his partner, and the burden he has to bear.


Written for a vocabulary challenge. You had to pick 25 words off a provided list and write a fic around them. Some of those I used are pretty obvious; if anyone's curious about all of them, they're highlighted in the post of this story to the Livejournal community yamifics. 

No particular spoilers, if you know who Terazuma is. He's a fairly minor character (and he isn't in the anime for more than about two screenshots) and none of the series plot points have anything to do with him. 

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It had been a long time ago. He still thinks about it, mostly on rainy days. It's very difficult not to, after all. He still bears the markings, and the restrictions, and the burden. 

Terazuma Hajime died some twenty years ago. Life, real life, seems almost oneiric, looking back. His senses were duller; he didn't have a constant tremor of the otherworldly humming beneath his skin. He'd been so cynical about the unknown, the mystic, so--oblivious. So wrapped up in his own private waking dream. The gunshot had woken him surely enough, woken him to a world not entirely unlike his first, if surreal in more than one way. 

Those first few months were wonderful. Accustoming himself to a brand new existence, new abilities, a new structure... He liked that. He likes being able to spread his wings, to exercise his strengths, and, it must be admitted, he was a bit of a show-off back then. 

He has to be more careful now. 

He remembers when he learned about shikigami. He remembers his initial interest, then his aversion when he found out more of the details. It had been hard to put words around at first, but he found the explanation when he was told that a shikigami would make him stronger. It seemed such a specious concept to him. It still does. Relying on the strength of something else does not make you any stronger. If anything, it's an exploitable weakness. Certainly it is in his case. Shikigami as allies would be one thing, but trapping them inside you and hoping for the best, or calling them as servants and ordering them about--no, that's entirely different. It's like asking for rebellion. 

Most others don't see it that way. Certainly his predecessor didn't. Terazuma remembers the man as impeccably dressed at all times, sedulous and serious, and, it seemed, able to recite the entire manual from memory. He used to joke that his instructor probably kept it as reading material before bed, and that KokuShunGei probably got on well with him because the great lion enjoyed teasing him about lightening up. That was before tensions began to run too high. When Terazuma spoke his mind about shikigami and flatly refused to try and find one he reacted well to, it ended any good relationship they might have had. 

The man became too censorious of his performances, too quick to upbraidhim for the slightest mistake or deviation from the rules. He was querulous with most people, but for his successor, he unleashed everything he had, trying to convince the young shinigami that he was mistaken in his convictions. 

Terazuma remained obdurate_, _and devoted himself to proving the man wrong. A great deal of his training was done in his spare time, devouring all the knowledge he could find about how best he could accomplish casework without relying on a shikigami, driving himself towards his teacher's impossible ideal of perfection. Their arguments became practically legendary in the department. 

Eventually, and, to Terazuma's mind at the time, nowhere near soon enough, the day came for his instructor's retirement. As is the norm for such an event, a farewell party was in full swing, with Terazuma in reluctant attendance. He'd argued with himself most of the day about coming, but, he'd decided finally, he might as well try to end things on a peaceable note. If he'd known then what the man was planning, he'd never have gone near the place. 

He remembers watching a florid sunset give way to a soft lavender gloaming out of a window, waiting for the celebration to wind down so he could talk to his teacher privately. He remembers, very clearly, how haggard the man had looked, as if he'd gotten no sleep in days. He'd cynically chalked it up as nervousness over leaving the department in the hands of the pupil of whom he so openly disapproved. 

Eventually, the last few numbers of their coworkers left, and the man turned to look at him, asking to walk with him while they talked about a few last details. The evening wind blew a soft susurrusin the sakura as they left the building and walked together in silence, Terazuma wrestling with the words to ask for a truce, to put to rest the enmity between them. His instructor has seemed to be struggling with something as well, although it was only in retrospect that his student would realize what it was. 

It was a clear night. Sound had carried well, or perhaps Terazuma only remembers it with such crystal clarity. He remembers the man's blue eyes as they stopped and faced each other, and the way he shook his head when his student started to speak, the sardonic expression that, too late, sent a chill of apprehension racing down the younger shinigami's spine. 

"Terazuma. You don't understand now, but you will someday. It _has _to be this way. You'll never be strong enough otherwise." 

He fell back a step, but his teacher had always been faster than him, and the man had caught his wrists and was pulling him close before his lips had time to shape a protest. 

He remembers KokuShunGei's name being called, and a whispered plea for forgiveness before the pain struck and lashed him to his knees, tearing a scream from his his throat. He remembers the way his cry echoed. He remembers red, and black, and such fury and pain, not his own, too strong, too strange to be his own as the last remnants of his life before were immolated in the deafening volume of a betrayed shikigami's roar. 

He doesn't remember anything else about that night. They tell him it was almost an hour before he was brought to heel, and that he was unconscious for nearly three days afterwards, laying still and pale in the infirmary, and that the first time he'd woken, he'd almost transformed again. He's heard whispers of how his eyes burned red, and how he spoke in a voice not his own. They'd found the means already to control him, luckily. When he finally regained consciousness himself, it was to the sight of a white ceiling and a horrible feeling of hollow dread in a mind no longer his alone. 

His new partner was waiting for him. She looked so bright sitting there against the sterile white walls, honeyed blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders, mismatched eyes smiling at him from a winsome young face. Kannuki Wakaba. He didn't know her at the time; she'd been pulled from another department. She was the one who explained things to him, told him how his teacher had forced KokuShunGei on him, how he'd transformed, what it meant... 

She brought him the mirror, and stood quietly as he stared in disbelief at a stranger's reflection. It's always with great bitterness that he remembers how they all learned that he shouldn't be touched by women. He'd begun to tremble, and had dropped the mirror, deaf to the ring of shattering glass. She'd embraced him--and he'd felt KokuShunGei roaring forth from within, reacting to the touch, the threat too close to be borne, and the comfort that the shikigami in no way desired. 

She hadn't touched him again, and had warned others to do the same, but she'd stayed, through his shock, his desperate denial, his futile anger. She'd stayed through all of it. He's never thanked her for that; back then, it made him uncomfortable and skittish, a sure way to guarantee the destruction of another building or two, and now it's too far in the past to bring up again. At any rate, he suspects that she already knows. 

It took him a long time to adjust. There were months of maladroit fumbling to discover what irritated his body's new resident, grueling sessions of learning how to throttle back the shikigami when it was possible, raging nightmares that ensured he and his partner a duplex they wouldn't normally have been able to afford. It was weeks before he could walk by a mirror and not double-take and have to wrestle with the urge to destroy it. He didn't look in them if he could help it; the immaculate appearance he'd cultivated under his teacher rapidly gave way to his more habitual unironed shirts and rumpled hair. 

The whole ordeal was the subject of a great deal of controversy, which he took pains to avoid whenever possible. His predecessor didn't get the peaceful retirement he'd planned; he had too much to be held accountable for, not the least of which was all the property damage his shikigami had done. Terazuma never saw the man again; he didn't trust himself or KokuShunGei to manage it without giving way to rage. It was hard enough having to deal with the grudging respect he could hear in peoples' voices when they spoke of the strength of will the transfer must have taken, with both shikigami and recipient unwilling. He doesn't want to know what eventual judgment was reached either; whatever it was, he doubts it's enough to satisfy him. 

Too much has changed. He used to like inclement weather. The thrill of a strong roll of thunder, the blinding flash of lightning; they made him feel wild inside; brought a cocky grin to his face and an unrestrained exultance to his stride. The trouble is, KokuShunGei feels much the same. Now he spends those times in constant trepidation, each rumble of thunder making the shikigami twitch restively within him. 

He hates it. He hated the pity in his coworkers' eyes when he first came back on the job; he hated the looks filled with concern just shy of being voiced. Unfortunately, he hates prevarication as well, so instead of lying, he held himself away, angry and unapproachable, so no one asked him questions he'd have to dodge. 

Wakaba was blessedly present for most of it, oblivious to the ill-humored glower that became almost a permanent expression on his face. She berated him--and still does, really--about his stubbornness, his sharpness, his short temper, his recklessness. He's glad of it, although he'd never say so. She at least doesn't treat him any differently than she does anyone else. 

KokuShunGei is all too seldom quiescent_, _even so many years later. The difference is that his bearer is inured to it more, now, and they've reached as much of an understanding as they're ever likely to come to. The shikigami will come when called, when needed, when Terazuma is in more danger than the lion considers acceptable--and he has no compunctions about when and where he emerges, so Terazuma takes caution to avoid getting into that much trouble. For the life of him, though, he can't figure out why his other 'partner' insists on emerging whenever women get a bit too close for comfort. KokuShunGei refuses to explain that to him, and arguing about it tends to lead to more expenses on the department's budget, so he's stopped asking, although it still bothers him. 

Particularly when it comes to Wakaba. 

He tries not to think about that too much. 

He tries, but sometimes, freedom obsesses him. He wants to be able to enjoy the thunder again. Sempiternal servitude to an unwanted set of rules grates on him, and, he suspects, on KokuShunGei too, but the bond was forced, and can't be undone. Sometimes, he thinks he'd give absolutely anything to be back in those early days, when he was still training, still able to fully relax and let himself go. 

Still _free..._

It's always worst on rainy days. 

---------- 

For anyone who's curious, the reason that KokuShunGei refuses to let his current bearer be touched by women is that his previous bearer forcibly 'evicted' him and he feels very betrayed by it. He'd never admit it, but he's grown fond of the brash, irritable young man who he's currently bonded to, and doesn't want Terazuma to go falling in love with someone and abandoning him. 


End file.
